


This is Berk. This is My Home.

by billtheradish



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Genre: Aftermath, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billtheradish/pseuds/billtheradish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid's life has always been about dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is Berk. This is My Home.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gorsecloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gorsecloud/gifts).



This is Berk. It's twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death.

We have plenty of fish and game, and the grass is perfect for our sheep. It's a hard place to live, but it's beautiful and it's ours.

It's hard, but that just makes us strong.

The only real problem is the dragons.

Our war.

\-----

Her first memory is of fire.

Their house had been just off the docks, away from the sheep and most of the catapults. It was one of the safest places in Berk.

When she was four, Astrid curled up in the middle of their biggest room, watching the light come through the walls. She bit her arm to keep herself from crying when it started to eat through the ceiling. The door was already gone.

Her mother broke a wall down to get to her. She spent the rest of the night curled into her mother's left side, behind her mother's shield, listening to her mother's screams of fury.

For years, she'd remember that sound as the meaning of safety.

\-----

It wasn't her fault that her father died. She knew that. But _something_ was her fault, or else her mother wouldn't have those tight lines around her mouth when she saw Astrid, sometimes.

The axe was her father's, brought back by the survivors of their raid.

When she was eight, she stole it for the first time. She wrapped it carefully and hauled it out into the woods where no one was likely to find her. She couldn't swing it, but she could hold it. 

So that's what she did. She held it at shoulder height, with the blade on her right, then on her left. She held it until her arms were shaking with the effort. Until it wasn't safe to try and keep it up.

The next day her arms hurt so much she almost couldn't do her chores.

She waited another day before she did it again. And again. And again. Over and over until she could lift it one handed and her hand didn't shake.

\-----

It wasn't her fault that her father died, exactly. It was her fault her mother hadn't been there. Had been stuck at home in Berk with an infant who needed too much care to leave alone.

Astrid didn't know if her mother thought she could have saved him, or if she just wanted the chance to have died with him.

She wasn't going to ask.

\-----

It was Gobber who taught her the best way to carry her axe. To hold her axe. To swing her axe. To throw her axe. When her mother was out with the ships, whether she was hunting dragons or fish, Astrid could always take the axe and find Gobber. 

He couldn't always demonstrate exactly what she needed to do, because of his hand, but he was patient and good natured and he never said she was doing well unless she actually _was_. He didn't say anything about her scrawny arms and legs, her narrow shoulders, her height. When she missed her target, he just stared at her and raised his eyebrows until she fetched her axe and did it again. And again. And again. Until she could hit it every time.

And then? Then he'd pat her on the back. Then he'd say she'd done well.

Then he'd make it harder, and they'd do it again.

She'd almost forgotten what it was like, not to have someone to go to, by the time he'd recovered enough to take over the forge again.

But the trees were still there. That was all she really needed, by then.

Targets.

\-----

Her entire life was about dragons.

Dragons killed her father. They'd nearly killed her. Her mother fought dragons. She'd learned to use her axe so _she_ could fight dragons.

She'd learned to read from the dragon manual, sitting in her mother's lap on rainy nights.

And then, her life was still all about dragons.

The useless boy who was beating her in the ring by doing everything _wrong_. The boy who _knew_ a dragon. Who _protected_ a dragon. Who _rode_ a dragon.

The boy who understood dragons. Who befriended them, helped them, studied them, loved them.

The boy who trusted dragons.

The dragon that trusted the boy. Protected him, helped him, saved him, loved him.

She touched a cloud, looked _down_ at the sky, saw more dragons than she'd ever realized existed. Saw dragons she didn't know about.

Felt sympathy for a dragon.

She held her hand out for a dragon, and blue scales quivered before pressing into her palm. She met alien golden eyes and she maybe, possibly, just a little bit...fell in love.

She figured Hiccup could learn to share, assuming they both survived.

\-----

After the queen was dead. After Hiccup was found. 

Just...after.

It was a mess.

Their ships were mostly wrecked and burned. They had wounded. They had dead.

They had...dragons. And stubborn, stubborn vikings.

And without Hiccup... _Astrid_ was the dragon expert. For befriending and riding, at least.

Between keeping tabs on Hiccup and overseeing the efforts to rebuild a ship, Stoick was pulled tight and brittle. Gobber couldn't be spared. Too much needed to be built. Phlegma had gone with Fishlegs and the first group of vikings on dragon-back. Spitelout was in with the wounded.

Astrid was loud, and she knew the most about dragons. So they kept turning to _her_.

She'd never felt so tired when she'd done so little. Her throat was hoarse from talking. From yelling down idiots. From coaxing skittish dragons to come closer and give someone a shot.

Her hands were shaking so badly she doubted she could lift her axe. But she'd hardly. done. anything.

She'd been yelling and coaxing and talking for hours, but more than half their people were still stranded. Still stuck. They had little food and fewer medical supplies. And more people kept making their way back from where they'd taken shelter. Been thrown. Been pinned or buried under rubble.

The dragons brought them food. The ones that were too paranoid or too small for riding left and dove and came back and...they brought fish. They brought a _lot_ of fish. They had so much fish she started telling people the best way to make friends was to feed a dragon, just to get rid of some of the fish.

She didn't know it was true at the time, but she was happy to learn it.

But the dragons couldn't bring them bandages. Not without making the trip to Berk and back, and that wouldn't happen until morning.

The wreckage they couldn't use for repairs went to fires. The wreckage that had been too wet to catch...well, they had dragons for that. It meant they could cook their food. It meant most of them had some warmth.

It meant some of them were huddled far away, because they'd already seen too much fire.

They had one ship mostly cobbled back together enough to use. Astrid was going to make _Stoick_ explain to the stubborn idiots that it was taking the wounded first. If they wanted off the island, they could ride a dragon _like everybody else_.

When a hand clamped down over her shoulder, Astrid didn't try to shake it off. She didn't resist, she didn't talk. She did what any viking worth the name would do.

The hand spun her around and her foot was already planted, her fist already formed.

Her mother caught it in the air and used it to pull her into a hug. And her mother was crying, sobbing into her hair, and she didn't know what to do.

"You do this to me again and I swear I am going to kill you myself."

She shook her head and clenched her hands in her mother's vest. "It needed doing."

" _Do I look like I care?_ "

Technically, her mother looked like grey fur and a yellow shirt, and not much else.

Astrid punched her mother's shoulder and pulled away to glare at her. Those tight lines she hated so much had taken over her mother's face, and every part of her was smeared with dust and ash. "It needed. _doing_. So I _did it_. Deal."

Something close to a smile and not quite a grimace spread over her mother's face. "Sometimes, I wish you were less like your father." Astrid blinked and her mother's hand settled over her hair. "You remind me so much of him sometimes," she sighed, then shrugged. "So what do you need?"

Nobody had asked her that yet.

"Sleep," she said. "I...really need to sleep."

"Then sleep."

Her mother pulled her in close to her side and covered her head with a shield.

Astrid fell asleep with her mother's snarl in her ears and vibrating up through her jaw. It felt like safety.

\-----

This is Berk.

We're loud, and tactless, and stubborn, and most of us probably smell. The weather is bitter and hard, and so are we. 

We don't know when to give in and give up.

That's why we ride dragons.

That's why this is my home.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been fascinated by Astrid's character. I am not entirely certain what I think about this piece, it's a new voice for me, but I hope you (and especially Gorsecloud) enjoyed it. <3


End file.
